This article was also published in the Financial Times.
The attention and good will of many of London’s leading restaurateurs are currently focused on Kitchen W8, which has just opened off Kensington High Street, west London, and Rebecca Mascarenhas who initially opened this site in spring 2006.
Yet despite Mascarenhas’s charm, professionalism and expertise, and she has been one of the capital’s few successful female restaurateurs at Sonny’s in Barnes, south-west London, for the past 23 years, her first restaurant here, 11 Abingdon Road, did not succeed.
Now she has just embarked on what is probably the toughest challenge in the business – to transform the fortunes of a restaurant on a site that has already proved to be unsuccessful. If, however, there is anyone likely to pull this feat off, it is Mascarenhas.
Amongst her fellow restaurateurs, Mascarenhas has the reputation for being a ‘tough cookie’ but this is probably a moniker she would relish. Born in Uganda of Indian extraction, she came to the UK in the late 1960s with her seven siblings and subsequently worked for two very strong characters in the hospitality industry, Bob Peyton and Victor Lownes.
While this experience gave her the confidence to become a restaurateur, she also realised that running her own restaurant was the only way that would allow her to combine this professional role with that of being a mother. ‘A restaurateur obviously works long hours but at least as the boss I could choose the times that suit me best. I’ve been able to be at home for our three daughters in the afternoon, put them to bed when they were smaller, and then go out to work.’
The success and longevity of Sonny’s continues to surprise her. ‘I’m not sure which is more astonishing, that it’s still there or I’m still here', she added with the smile that has obviously captivated thousands of customers. But Sonny’s has succeeded despite the fact that although it is located in a wealthy suburb, population density is low and most close by still live in houses with kitchens and dining rooms.
Abingdon Road is very different. It was home to Biba, the clothes shop, that essential part of London in the Swinging Sixties, and today it is surrounded by blocks of flats in what is regarded as the capital’s wealthiest borough. The same size as Sonny’s, with 100 covers, it initially looked very promising to Mascarenhas.
11 Abingdon Road, however, never prospered during its two years and Mascarenhas now believes she knows why. ‘I was happy with the food and the prices were good value but we missed out on the smartness level. It simply had the wrong profile for Kensington.’
But before she turned her attention to overhauling the restaurant, Mascarenhas had to endure two very uncomfortable years as the business just limped on. ‘It was a horrible experience', she explained, ‘checking in every day to see how many customers we’d served and what they had spent, hoping against hope that things would start to improve. It was the failure of a dream and that is always very sad.’
Mascarenhas had options. She could put the business into receivership but she found that approach morally and professionally repugnant. She could sell the site but the timing for this approach in the spring of 2009 was not good at all and, even had she found a buyer, this solution would have crystallised a loss that she did not feel that she could live with. Or she could put her thinking cap on and take advantage of an impressive address book that she has built up over the years.
It is the latter approach that has resulted in a restaurant different in every respect from its predecessor: the name; the pictures on the wall; the tablecloths; the extra space between tables; the fact that the finishing section for the pastry section is now by the bar allowing sweet, sugary aromas to waft across the entrance; the wine list (as well as a ‘bring your own bottle’ policy to encourage customers on Sunday evenings); and a completely new and compelling menu.
This last, and the new lease of life Kitchen W8 seems to have given Mascarenhas, have all come about because her initial phone call to Philip Howard, a neighbour, long-time friend and chef/director of the Michelin-starred restaurant The Square in Mayfair, found an enthusiastic response. The eventual deal that ensued would result in each investing £70,000 in the new restaurant with Howard responsible for overseeing the kitchen, whose chef Mark Kempson has worked with Howard for three years, and Mascarenhas responsible for its new direction.
About which she now has very strong views. ‘I want this place to be like one of those grown-up restaurants we have always enjoyed on the Upper East Side whenever we have been in New York. Kitchen W8 is to be relaxed, a place where customers can easily hear what’s being said around the table.’
But the most compelling reason for Kitchen W8’s probable success has less to do with the two excellent meals I have enjoyed there and more to do with a comment Mascarenhas let slip as I was leaving. ‘I don’t think that either Philip or I have anything to prove now. But we’re both desperate to make this place work.’
Kitchen W8, www.kitchenw8.com